Rainbow Dash lives an exciting life and is swiftly becoming the most daring, awesome pegasus in all of Equestria. She would gladly give it all up, though, just to confess her love to Applejack.
Now...
In a clearing just outside of Whitetail Woods...
A series of stagecoaches gathered around an old, decrepit barn.
One closed wagon in particular rolled to a stop, pulled by a series of surly-looking stallions.
As it arrived, even more muscular ponies shuffled out of the barn, looking cautiously in every direction. Once the coast was clear, they gestured to the stagecoach, and a servant rushed up to the ornate black wagon, opening it and squatting low.
"Mrmmmf..." A pudgy pony in a business suit poked his head out, squinting angrily into the bright afternoon sunlight. "...Celestia damn... I hate the country," Don Canter grumbled. "Even the air smells like hicks."
"Our contact is inside, sir," spoke one of the thugs.
"A barn like that has plenty of crossbeams, yes?" Don Canter lit a cigar and stuck it into the far edge of his gnarled muzzle. "Hmmff... plenty of spots to hang 'em from." He stepped out of the stagecoach, his heavy body using the squatting servant as a stepping stool.
As he trudged towards the barn, a pair of shifty stallions stood at the entrance, fidgeting all over.
"My good sir," Flim stammered.
"Most esteemed and honorable Don Canter," Flam added, bowing low.
"We... we have no idea why we've been delayed!" Flim gulped. "We gave him everything he needed! We even saw the mare with our own eyes—"
"Can it with the senseless squabbling already," Don Canter grumbled, waving them aside. His angry glare carried him into the barn's rustic abode. "I know who's to blame."
Inside, several shady figures stood in weight. Top Dog stood next to his canine cronies, folding his forelimbs and snorting indignantly. Sunset Shimmer paced in an angry circle, her horn pulsing in random intervals. Once Don Canter entered the room, everypony stood up tall, tight, and tense.
"Alright!" Don Canter's voice boomed. The end of his cigar sent an amber beam across the dusty darkness. "Come out of hiding you stuffed grouse! Explain your damn self before I have my stallions pluck every feather from your yellow belly and then some!"
Silence.
"Well?!" Don Canter growled louder. "Are you here, or was this another wild goose chase?!"
"I come out..." Romulus suddenly hissed in the mob boss' ear.
Don Canter jumped. Every stallion in the room trained their weapons on the griffon.
He calmly slinked his way around the figure, emerging fully from the shadows. "...when and only when I choose to." He kept his one good eye trained on the leader while he strutted towards the center of the room on sharp talons. "Lest we forget... it was I who summoned you here."
"We weren't even supposed to be summoned!" Sunset Shimmer spat, stomping a hoof in anger. "You were supposed to do your job!"
"We gave you everything!" Flim hollered. He and Flim shared the same mutual glare. "Her address! Her home! The name of her friends!"
"By Jove, we even gave you the location of her cloud home!" Flam added. "We were promised vengeance for our beloved mother!"
"Yessss!" Top Dog hissed, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. "And we were promised our share in the shards' power! So why haven't you retrieved them yet?!" The armored dogs at his side banged their spears and breastplates, barking.
In the far corner, a basilisk eye swirled about inside a glass jar resting on a bale of hay.
Romulus stared lethargically at the group.
"My good friend..."
Romulus looked over at Don Canter.
The mob boss stared with eyes like daggers. "You made me leave the luxurious comforts of Trottingham to come here, and for some reason I am not seeing our infamous trouble-maker having her entrails ripped out while she screams the location of the stolen chaos shards." His brow furrowed. "To say that we are curious is an understatement." Just then, a bright green glow illuminated his muzzle.
The others gathered in the room squinted at the source of the glow.
Romulus held up a pulsating stone in his grasp. The half of it facing the west end of the barn strobed brighter than the rest.
"What in blazes is that?!" Flam remarked.
"A tracking stone..." Sunset Shimmer thought out loud. "But..." She cocked her head aside. "Where's the other half of it?"
"In the target—Rainbow Dash's saddlebag," Romulus calmly said. "It's being flown due west, towards the wasteland."
The barn filled with heavy murmurs.
"Towards the wasteland...?" Don Canter gritted his teeth. "You stupid turkey! Why didn't you stop her before she took off!"
"Do you want half of the shards or all of them, old stallion?!" Romulus suddenly snarled, his gaze sharp.
Don Canter merely blinked. His ears folded back.
Top Dog, Sunset Shimmer, and the rest lost their angry edge, bathed suddenly in curiosity and confusion.
Romulus took a deep breath. "Fillies and gentlecolts..." His talons clasped tighter around the pulsating stone. "...there's been a development."
Part Eighteen: Birds of a Feather
(Where Rainbow Dash has to take two steps back to make four steps forward)
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...When the cat is gone, the rats come out to play...
Ohhhh... The Super Bad Guys Group is formulating some nefarious plans. But at least we don't need to worry about Ponyville... right?
And with Rainbow Dash gone... Ponyville is ripe for destruction. Hopefully the other Elements can ensure that nothing happens, but with this author, who knows what's in store.
They think they're being clever, but they are laboring under a seriously flawed assumption. Once Dash has all of the shards, they will no longer be shards.
So the tracking stone is in the bag, and Lancie is in the bag.
Not so sure this is going to pan out the way Romulus wants. I sense... chaos is coming.
6142476 Yep.
But our resident featherhead presumably doesn't know anything about Lancie.
Which is going to run in Dash's favor, I'm thinking.
I know it's not going to.
And I'm thinking that your sense about that is right on the money.
6142443 Very, very true.
And when she does, a fully restored Lancie will be the one they have to contend with.
Honestly, they've lost this little game of theirs.
They just don't know it yet.
6142486 No, not a fully restored Lancie, a fully restored Discord.
6142497 Well, they're actually one and the same, right?
Dash just doesn't know that bit of it.
No matter which way you slice it, methinks that the baddies are in for a nasty shock when he is restored
6142504 Oh, Dash knows. She's the one who crashed into Discord, shattering him, after all. And she's fully aware of who she's reassembling.
Are they one and the same? I suppose, from one point of view, but "Lancie" felt the need to identify himself by that name. My memory is a bit foggy as to why, and I'm not motivated enough to search for that ancient chapter, but I think it was because he just didn't feel like himself, being only a tiny fraction of it.
There they are. Now, what are they up to?
6142521
To be honest, she's not really all that aware of who she's reassembling, because Discord never broke free in this AU, so the first time she met him, he was the little stone golem that decided to call himself Lancie.
And he called himself that because when Rainbow Dash referred to him as what Noir had called him, "Discord the Devourer of Peace", he claimed that that wasn't his name (or, to be precise, he mocked her for thinking it was his name without ever actually denying it), and then declared that she could call him Lancie. Then he went on his spiel about being only a fragment of his former self, but he was talking about how powerful he'd been, not why Discord isn't his name. To me, it seemed like he used the alternate name because he needed Rainbow Dash to be willing to help him recover the parts of his body, and he's savvy enough to know that Discord is a bad-guy name and not likely to help him win her over. :-)
Noir told her some stuff about Discord, but Rainbow's never met him. And Lancie's become her friend. She has no idea who and what Discord truly is. I just hope desperately that Lancie isn't playing her, that he really has become attached to her over time (emotionally, rather than magically as he first claimed), because going and getting all his pieces means that he will no longer have his original motivation for helping her. I'm pretty sure he started with the wish granting because it was the best way to get her to help him find his pieces, and if he has all his pieces, he doesn't need her anymore. On the other hand, we know from canon that Discord is secretly desperate to have a friend, and we've seen Lancie be sentimental toward Rainbow when she wasn't conscious to know it, so... I hope that re-forming Discord produces a reformed Discord. :-)
"Where Rainbow Dash has to take two steps back to make four steps forward"
If I'm remembering right, in the Austraeoh series, Dash says this to Roarke and she was like "lame".
Well this sure won't be lame
The gang's all here!
Well, at least they're attacking her in Aatxe's domain instead of Ponyville, so everypony else (except Apple Bloom) is safe for now...
Part of this seem to be suggesting that the gang of defeated foes aren't actually responsible for Appleblooms getting bitten.
6142521 Ah. Okay. Thanks for telling me that.
And to be honest (glares at the smirking Applejack again), I think I remember reading that, too, but, like you, I'd forgotten it.
And hey, "Lancie" actually sounds way better than "Discord".
In my very humble opinion.
6142443 I think RD left her half of the shards back at her cloud home. So even if RD does get the other half from the dragon boss, she'll first need to return home for Lancie to return to his former self. That would give the revenge squad a lot of opportunities to intercept or trap her, or even loot her shards in her home.
But... The revenge squad doesn't know that once Lancie grants a wish, a shard or two...or half...looses its power, rendering them useless. So methinks they're going to get so freaking angry and will continue to cause RD some trouble after they find out that the shards no longer hold power...
Other than that... Once Lancie does get all his shards back and he returns to normal... Whelp... Ponyville's going to turn into the Chaos Capital of the world...
“In a clearing just outside of Whitetail Woods...
A series of stagecoaches gathered around an old, decrepit barn.
One closed wagon in particular rolled to a stop, pulled by a series of surly-looking stallions.
As it arrived, even more muscular ponies shuffled out of the barn, looking cautiously in every direction. Once the coast was clear, they gestured to the stagecoach, and a servant rushed up to the ornate black wagon, opening it and squatting low.”
Uh oh....
“Inside, several shady figures stood in weight. Top Dog stood next to his canine cronies, folding his forelimbs and snorting indignantly. Sunset Shimmer paced in an angry circle, her horn pulsing in random intervals. Once Don Canter entered the room, everypony stood up tall, tight, and tense.”
UH OH!
"I come out..." Romulus suddenly hissed in the mob boss' ear.
Don Canter jumped. Every stallion in the room trained their weapons on the griffon.
He calmly slinked his way around the figure, emerging fully from the shadows. "...when and only when I choose to." He kept his one good eye trained on the leader while he strutted towards the center of the room on sharp talons. "Lest we forget... it was I who summoned you here."
"We weren't even supposed to be summoned!" Sunset Shimmer spat, stomping a hoof in anger. "You were supposed to do your job!"
"We gave you everything!" Flim hollered. He and Flim shared the same mutual glare. "Her address! Her home! The name of her friends!"
"By Jove, we even gave you the location of her cloud home!" Flam added. "We were promised vengeance for our beloved mother!"
"Yessss!" Top Dog hissed, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. "And we were promised our share in the shards' power! So why haven't you retrieved them yet?!" The armored dogs at his side banged their spears and breastplates, barking.
In the far corner, a basilisk eye swirled about inside a glass jar resting on a bale of hay.
Romulus stared lethargically at the group.
"My good friend..."
Romulus looked over at Don Canter.
The mob boss stared with eyes like daggers. "You made me leave the luxurious comforts of Trottingham to come here, and for some reason I am not seeing our infamous trouble-maker having her entrails ripped out while she screams the location of the stolen chaos shards." His brow furrowed. "To say that we are curious is an understatement." Just then, a bright green glow illuminated his muzzle.
The others gathered in the room squinted at the source of the glow.
Romulus held up a pulsating stone in his grasp. The half of it facing the west end of the barn strobed brighter than the rest.
"What in blazes is that?!" Flam remarked.
"A tracking stone..." Sunset Shimmer thought out loud. "But..." She cocked her head aside. "Where's the other half of it?"
"In the target—Rainbow Dash's saddlebag," Romulus calmly said. "It's being flown due west, towards the wasteland."
The barn filled with heavy murmurs.
"Towards the wasteland...?" Don Canter gritted his teeth. "You stupid turkey! Why didn't you stop her before she took off!"
"Do you want half of the shards or all of them, old stallion?!" Romulus suddenly snarled, his gaze sharp.
Don Canter merely blinked. His ears folded back.
Top Dog, Sunset Shimmer, and the rest lost their angry edge, bathed suddenly in curiosity and confusion.
Romulus took a deep breath. "Fillies and gentlecolts..." His talons clasped tighter around the pulsating stone. "...there's been a development."
Fuck......
So, Romulus believes that Rainbow Dash has a better chance of retrieving the rest of the shards than this entire group of bad guys combined, but that once she's done that, this group will be able to beat Dash and get all the shards? That only makes sense to me if he's expecting Dash to be so exhausted from the ordeal with the dragons that they can beat her. Then again I don't expect much intelligence from these guys.
6142521 Lancie is a play on the fact that Discord's voice actor is named John de Lancie.
Oh crap.
Well, on the bright side, if they want her to get the shards from Aatxe, that means they're not going to bother her until she comes back.
... though they might already decide to visit Ponyville before then...
6142402
Surely Skirts wouldn't do this to---
scrkkkk "The good doctor cannot hear you."
And I'm sure Ponyville will be fine... Right?